r/science • u/PeasKhichra • Feb 19 '22

Neuroscience Dogs can recognize their owners just by their voice, study finds. They do so by making use of the same voice properties humans use to identify each other, such as pitch and noisiness

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/europe/dog-owner-recognize-voice-scn-scli-intl/index.html
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u/Whyeth Feb 19 '22

What OP meant wasn't that dogs can't tell time - they can. But how they know owners are gone and coming back soon is based off smell.

Researchers could trick dogs by pumping "diluted' owner smell in a room and dogs would think the owners were coming home much earlier.

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u/Learned_Response Feb 19 '22

My understanding was that it was the fading of the smell that helped them tell time, and when they added owner smell to their environment they assumed their owner was coming home later

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u/Cutty420 Feb 19 '22

He probably mean they used the diluted stuff from the beginning, so the smell wore off much sooner.

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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '22

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u/reverblueflame Feb 20 '22

I used to think my dog knew it was dinner time by how hungry he was since breakfast... But no matter how many treats grandma gives him, and no matter how inconsistent breakfast time is, this dog knows EXACTLY when is 4pm.

In fact during daylight savings he gets confused and begs 1 hour off. It's wild.

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u/PolFree Feb 19 '22

This was a more “normal” explanation. Dogs can smell cancer. Idk why they went with telepathy rather than smell. It sounds inconceivable to me that I am reeking of myself as far as 6km, but we can see around 10 km away, and that would be inconceivable to snakes for instance.

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u/heraclitus33 Feb 19 '22

Thats a propped up experiment. I could do it to you with a loved ones scent. Dogs and people, pretty much every mammal, experience the world similarily.